Article March 1, 1913 Issue

Referring to a sermon reported in a recent issue, allow...

George S. Powell

Greensboro (N.C.) News

Referring to a sermon reported in a recent issue, allow me to say that the preacher was not justified in trying to connect the teaching of Christian Science with that of Plato, Fichte, and Berkeley. Christian Science teaches that God's creation is perfect, harmonious, and indestructible, that evil can be overcome and destroyed, as the Bible teaches, and therefore it is not of God. If evil, sin, and disease were of God, they could not be destroyed, and it would be wrong to attempt to destroy them, for "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good"—"All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made." God is Spirit, and His creation, including man, is spiritual, indestructible, real, eternal. This is what Christian Science means when speaking of the real and the unreal, and it is what Jesus meant when he said: "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing." "He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father," and "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

Gibbon, in his history of the "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," says it is reported that for three hundred years after the crucifixion of Jesus, his followers exercised this divine power by healing the sick and raising the dead. This power was lost when Constantine, in establishing a state religion, undertook to popularize Christianity by concessions to pagan Rome, with the result that the healing Christ, the seamless robe, was laid aside for man-made creeds and dogmas. The trend of public thought today is, however, toward the religion taught by Jesus and the apostles,—a demonstrable religion that will give present relief from sin, sickness, discord, strife, and greed. If the Bible is true, and man is made in the image and likeness of God, Spirit, not matter, he lives, moves, and has his being in God; "the kingdom of God is within" him; he is an heir of God, and joint-heir with Christ Jesus, and he has the divine right to overcome these inharmonious conditions.

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